Vous voulez voir cette page en français ? Cliquez ici.

 

or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
 
 
More Buying Choices
18 used & new from CDN$ 13.22

Have one to sell? Sell yours here
 
   
The Practice of Everyday Life
 
 

The Practice of Everyday Life (Paperback)

by Michel de Certeau (Author) "THE EROSION AND DENIGRATION of the singular or the extraordinary was announced by The Man Without Qualities: "Perhaps it is precisely the petit-bourgeois who has..." (more)
4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
List Price: CDN$ 26.50
Price: CDN$ 16.70 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over CDN$ 39. Details
You Save: CDN$ 9.80 (37%)
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.ca. Gift-wrap available.

Only 3 left in stock--order soon (more on the way).

14 new from CDN$ 13.22 4 used from CDN$ 17.11

Frequently Bought Together

The Practice of Everyday Life + The Production of Space + The Poetics of Space
Total List Price: CDN$ 105.44
Price For All Three: CDN$ 78.59

Some of these items ship sooner than the others. Show details

  • This item: The Practice of Everyday Life by Michel de Certeau

    In Stock.
    Ships from and sold by Amazon.ca.
    Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over CDN$ 39. Details

  • The Production of Space by Henri Lefebvre

    In Stock.
    Ships from and sold by Amazon.ca.
    This item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping. Details

  • The Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard

    Usually ships within 10 to 13 days.
    Ships from and sold by Amazon.ca.
    Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over CDN$ 39. Details


Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

The Production of Space

The Production of Space

by Henri Lefebvre
4.0 out of 5 stars (1)  CDN$ 48.79
The Poetics of Space

The Poetics of Space

by Gaston Bachelard
4.8 out of 5 stars (9)  CDN$ 13.10
The Society of the Spectacle

The Society of the Spectacle

by Guy Debord
4.8 out of 5 stars (12)  CDN$ 15.16
Heterologies: Discourse on the Other

Heterologies: Discourse on the Other

by Michel De Certeau
5.0 out of 5 stars (1)  CDN$ 21.53
Illuminations: Essays and Reflections

Illuminations: Essays and Reflections

by Walter Benjamin
5.0 out of 5 stars (7)  CDN$ 14.56
Explore similar items

Product Details


Product Description

Review

"The Practice of Everyday Life...offers ample evidence why we should pay heed to de Certeau and why more of us have not done so. For one, the work all but defies definition. History, sociology, economics, literature and literary criticism, philosophy, and anthropology all come within de Certeau's ken... De Certeau acts very much like his own ordinary hero, manipulating, elaborating, and inventing on the scientific authority that he both denies and requires."-Priscilla P. Clark, Journal of Modern History "De Certeau's book is to be praised for setting out some of the practical procedures, in which we are all implicated, that are used to invent what appears to us as our reality, and for finding at least some ways in which the totalitarian nature of our current systems of sense-making can be subverted."-John Shotter, New Ideas in Psychology

Thomas Fleming, Chronicles of Culture

"Everyday Life is littered with insights and perceptions, any one of which could make the career of an American academic." --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Inside This Book (Learn More)
First Sentence
THE EROSION AND DENIGRATION of the singular or the extraordinary was announced by The Man Without Qualities: "Perhaps it is precisely the petit-bourgeois who has the presentiment of the dawn of a new heroism, a heroism both enormous and collective, on the model of ants." Read the first page
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
Search inside this book:

Tag this product

 (What's this?)
Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items.
Your tags: Add your first tag
 

What do customers ultimately buy after viewing this item?

The Practice of Everyday Life
78% buy the item featured on this page:
The Practice of Everyday Life 4.6 out of 5 stars (5)
CDN$ 16.70
The Poetics of Space
8% buy
The Poetics of Space 4.8 out of 5 stars (9)
CDN$ 13.10
Space And Place: The Perspective of Experience
6% buy
Space And Place: The Perspective of Experience 4.0 out of 5 stars (1)
CDN$ 15.16
The Arcades Project
4% buy
The Arcades Project 4.0 out of 5 stars (4)
CDN$ 19.40

 

Customer Reviews

5 Reviews
5 star:
 (4)
4 star:    (0)
3 star:
 (1)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.6 out of 5 stars (5 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most helpful customer reviews

 
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Enigmatic and enlightening, Jan 12 2003
By Peter A. Kindle (Kansas City, Missouri) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
Sometimes I am simply proud that I have read a book. This slim volume falls into that category. The fourteen short chapters explode with new ideas, fresh perspectives, and tantalizing viewpoints. To summarize these riches is unlikely to do them justice, yet I will try.

De Certeau inverts social values and cultural hierarchies. His hero metaphor is not the exemplar, but rather the ant. Wisdom resides not in the pronouncement of expert or philosopher, but in the routine discourse between ordinary people. To De Certeau the definitional constraints imposed by the experts result in artificial distinctions. Only the discourse of ordinary people is firmly rooted in experience and embraces the varieties and logical complexities of living.

Among these complexities of life is the amazing adaptive capacity of the ordinary. Even the most oppressive and controlling of cultures cannot eradicate the subversive agency of the peasant. This subversive agency is expressed through mythic stories, common proverbs, and verbal tricks. De Certeau refers to the adaptive capacity of the ordinary as tactics of living, and these tactics may be best exemplified when the worker does the personal while on the clock.

The distinction between strategy and tactics is central to De Certeau's thought. Strategy refers to the top-down exercise of power to coerce compliance. Tactics refer to the opportunistic manipulations offered by circumstance. The conflict between strategies and tactics is ironic - as strategic forces expand to increase dominance, there is a corresponding increase in opportunity for tactical subversion.

De Certeau relates his ideas to the theoretical work of Foucault and Bourdieu, and continues his inverted perspective by looking anew at the concept of city, commuter travel by rail, story telling, writing, reading, and believing.

This book is more of a riddle than a narrative; de Certeau provides glimpses of his meaning from time to time, but deliberately avoids propositional clarity. This style requires that the reader take an unusual stance toward this book. Instead of expecting the author to communicate, the reader must content himself with hints and suggestions of meaning. I am convinced that these hints and suggestions are more than worth the reader's investment of time. Find a quiet place and enjoy!

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No


 
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars a book that changed the way I think, Jan 14 2002
This is one of the great books of French post-structuralist thought. I realize that to some people that might be like saying "one of the nicest Nazis I know." But for those who don't immediately dismiss the entire genre, there is much to be gained from reading, and rereading, this book.

In essence, Certeau is challenging the rather despairing vision of Foucault's The Order of Things, with its image of the panopticon from which no one can escape. Certeau focuses on everyday practices to see how people do in fact escape the all-seeing gaze of the panopticon. In particular his distinction between "strategy" and "tactics" is useful and intriguing.

The language is highly poetic and at times difficult going, but *how* Certeau says what he says is in some ways as important as *what* he says. He wants to write in a way that at the same time uses and escapes the constraints of ordinary language. It takes some getting used to, but it is worth it.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No


 
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars good ideas, but painful reading, May 11 2001
By Jeremy P. Bushnell (imaginaryyear.com) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
DeCerteau's ideas in this book primarily deal with control and resistance: he finds that average people have developed various strategies that establishes their independence in a world that seeks to dominate them. He's especially interested in how people receive media: he thinks media producers (including writers) seek to impose meaning on media consumers, yet he rejects the notion that consumers consume mindlessly. DeCerteau examines the creative strategies employed by consumers, and he in fact sees them as a form of unrecognized producers (which is part of why this book is of interest to people studying 'fan fiction' and similar phenomena).

Like much French theory, this book functions like a poem, making its argument by way of symbolic relationships and analogy rather than by calling upon the causal / statistical relationships that characterize much American argument. This may turn some people off, and even by French-theory standards this book is not user-friendly at all. DeCerteau often uses common, general words (say, "writing," or "time") to refer to very particular, highly-nuanced concepts. Simply relying upon the commonly-accepted meanings of those words will not do, and yet deCerteau rarely takes the time to explain the meanings that he has in mind. The result is that the book reads like an enormous cryptogram: you can only decipher what he means by particular words by noting and crossreferencing the varying contexts in those words are used throughout the book-- a tedious process which forced this reader to continually question whether the nuggets of gold were really worth all the panning through silt.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
Most recent customer reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars THE HEART OF THE MATTER OF TERRORISM
This book - whose subject is the tactics employed by those at odds with institutions physical and intellectual - offers profound insights not only into terrorism and the tools... Read more
Published on April 30 2004

5.0 out of 5 stars Incomparable style and scholarship
Michel de Certeau's brilliant book is one of the primary nodes in the historical switchbox that eventually crossed the signals that led us through structuralism and practice... Read more
Published on Aug 15 2002 by Ben Dongieux

Only search this product's reviews



Listmania!

Create a Listmania! list

Look for similar items by category


Look for similar items by subject


Feedback


Amazon.ca Privacy Statement Amazon.ca Shipping Information Amazon.ca Returns & Exchanges

Your Recent History

 (What's this?)

After viewing product detail pages or search results, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in.